A Fugitive Kind (1960) - Rewatch

Plot:   In a small Southern town, the Italian wife of a dying store owner hires a drifter to help her run the store. Complications ensue.
Stars:  Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Joanne Woodward, R.G. Armstrong, Maureen Staplelton,
Best Quote:  Tennessee, darling, they've absolutely ruined your perfectly dreadful play - Tallulah Bankhead

Runner-up Quote:  Walked out- Brando enourmously fat and quite incoherent - pauses for hours between every unitelligible word - and the whole thing is a crushing bore - John Gielgud. 

I was far too generous with this film the first time round.  Yes, the acting is good, but the story and characters are simply awful, and its hard to see why all this first-rate talent was so eager to do it. Outside of the two main characters, everyone is either unpleasant or grotesque,  No wonder the original Broadway play was a flop.

Usually, Williams creates villains that are bad - but energetic and larger-then-life.  Here, they're just small-town jerks. To make us sympathize with Magnani's adultery, her dying husband is portrayed as a nasty man full of insults and sarcasm.  And to make us root against Joanne Woodward -Magnini's rival for Brando - she's given strange makeup, unattractive clothes, and runs around drunk and having sex in the cemetery!  Just as bad, we get the  usual Southern-fried Hollywood stereotypes, including (groan) the bigoted Sheriff telling Brando to get out of town by sundown. Hey, they take adultery seriously down in Dixie!

And we're SUPPOSED to care for drifter Brando (named "snakeskin"), but we don't, because his character is so superficially drawn.  Brando does what he can, and he's in full mumble-pause mode, but his character is never believable**. He's another movie stumble-bum/drifter who's really a Saint underneath it all.  The only  realistic/likable character is Magnani - but she's only a part of the movie.

Direction? The movie starts off well, with New Orleans trial scene, and Brando's arrival in the small town. But the whole things gets duller and more unpleasant as it moves along. And it drags on for two hours. Summary: On re-watch my opinion is lowered, even some good acting can't save this lumbering, odd, bore of a movie.

** - Brando's character is given a guitar, which he treasures above all.  But he almost never plays it, and Brando never sings. It exists mainly, to give Brando's character an interesting attribute, and to hide Brando's big stomach.

Brando's Battle of the Bulge

I'll admit it, I find Marlon Brando interesting. Not just as an actor but as a person.  Not admirable - but fascinating and unusual. For example, unlike most leading men of the 1950s and 1960s, Brando had a real weight problem. Some highlights:

• George Englund writes that Brando needed to lose 30 lbs for "The Ugly American" and was doing well on his diet, until Brando and Englund went to a Beverly Hills Party. Brando disappeared into the Kitchen where Englund found Brando. wolfing down an entire cherry pie and a bottle of milk.
• In 1993, Brando had an insurance examination for his book and weighed-in at 305 lbs, but otherwise had no major health problems.
• Apocalypse Now. Brando showed up in the Philippines in 1976, 80 lbs overweight, and was so obese Coppola had to use a body double, and shoot Brando in shadows and from the waist up.
• In 1968, Kazan wanted him to lose weight for the Arrangement and was shocked at how fat Brando was in the The Countess from Hong Kong. By Comparison, Brando is in great shape in Night of the Following Day, shot in October 1966.
• Ghost-writer Lindsey writes Brando was so fat in 1991, he put his plate on his stomach, where it was perfectly flat.
• The One Eyed Jacks crew gave Brando an expensive belt at the wrap-party with the note: "Hope it fits".
• On Mutiny on the Bounty, Brando kept gaining weight and splitting his costume. requiring constant sets of new clothes.
• In most movies after 1973 the director's shot around Brando's weight by keeping the camera above the waist, or shooting Brando behind a table. Another trick was to give him flowing robes, or a well-tailored dark suit to hide the pounds.
• During the 1973 Dick Cavett interview, Brando hides his weight by wearing a Denim Jacket over a very dark sweater, with dark pants. He's either shot over the shoulder, or straight on. Its only when he's shown - once or twice -in close up at slight angle, that you can see his massive stomach spread. Comparison to his 1968 interview with Carson, shows the weight gain.
• In Appaloosa he wears loose fitting Pancho's and uses a stunt double for the action scenes.
• Brando swam and skin-dived, but there's no record of him hiking, jogging, playing tennis or golf, or any sport after the age of 20. According to his personal assistant, the older Brando would occasionally do exercises in the pool.
• In Autobiography, Brando claims he could lose up to fifty pounds, "whenever he wished", but as he got older and more fat, losing that "Fifty Pounds" meant he was bouncing between being 30-80 overweight.